Global Warming Skepticism On The Rise In Europe

11:10 AM 05/04/2015 | Video

Michael Bastasch | Energy Editor

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Siv Jensen is seen as an anomaly in Norway. She’s the conservative finance minister of a country committed to fighting global warming, but she does not believe mankind is causing global temperatures to rise.

In a recent interview, Jensen said “no” when asked if she believed mankind was causing global warming. She then immediately doubled down by answering “yes” to the actual follow-up question, “Are you serious?”

“Fortunately, Norwegian climate policies don’t depend on the Progress Party leader’s personal views on this matter,” Nina Jensen, Siv Jensen’s own sister who works for an environmental group, told Norwegian reporters. “But I want to underline that political leaders today who sow doubt about man-made climate change aren’t doing their job to create solutions to the most important problem the world is facing.”

But Jensen is not alone. Europeans seem to be getting tired of global warming alarmism. Skepticism of man-made warming from greenhouse gas emissions seems to be a growing trend in Europe.

As Jensen announces her skepticism of man-made global warming, Pope Francis is preparing to weigh in on the global warming debate. Francis is expected to chastise countries for emitting carbon dioxide from fossil fuel use and that something should be done to counteract warming.

But as climate scientists and environmentalists flock to Rome, global warming skeptics from the U.S. and Europe have also made their way to St. Peter’s to warn the Pope against global warming alarmism.

“You demean the office that you hold and you demean the church whom it is your sworn duty to protect and defend and advance,” noted skeptic Christopher Monckton, the third Viscount Monckton of Brenchley, said at an event in Rome as if he were speaking to the pope himself.

“You will be kicking the poor in the teeth. Stand back and listen to both sides. And do not take sides in politics,” said Monckton, who’s a British Catholic.

A little farther north, in Germany, 15,000 German coal miners protested their country’s environmental policies last week which favor green energy sources, like wind and solar, over coal. Germany’s reliance on coal has slightly increased in recent years because of the government’s decision to phase out nuclear power, but politicians are still trying to restrict coal use.

Germany wants to reduce carbon dioxide emissions 40 percent by 2020 — which means using a lot less coal. Obviously coal miners weren’t too happy about that. German green policies could force 39 coal plants to shut down in the near future, according to the power industry.

Miners at the rally held up banners saying “safe and affordable power supply with lignite,” and “We electrify Germany”.

Electricity in Germany has gotten so expensive that media outlets call it a “luxury good.” Power prices have gotten so expensive that the Economic Council of the Christian Democratic Party (CDU) says the country’s global warming targets go too far.

“It was a mistake not to reduce the CO2 target to 30 percent by 2020 while phasing out of nuclear energy, ” said Wolfgang Steiger, Secretary General of the Economic Council, warning of “accelerated de-industrialization” of Germany.

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